I’m considering upgrading my WordPress blog to Genesis, but I need to learn way more about this framework and its options before forking over the $$$. I pretty much understand the benefits of Genesis… but, unless I’m missing something, the aesthetics leave much to be desired. I’ve now browsed what has to be every single child theme on the planet, and I’ve found them to be universally boring and generic. I haven’t seen a single theme that actually has an interesting design, let alone extensive color customizations, let alone font options. Are there plugins for that??

In a nutshell, what I’m looking for is a Genesis child theme that is mobile responsive, adsense ready, has at least a slightly out-of-the-box design, AND allows for virtually unlimited customizations in the way of layout, fonts, and *especially* colors. Does such a thing exist??

Btw, I’m getting really cranky reading all the “experts” go on about how you should forget about design. Because it makes no sense! The web is a VISUAL medium, and while of course content is of the utmost importance, a blog should offer eye candy as well as brain candy.

Can you have a child theme that does exactly what you want and looks exactly how you want? Sure.

Does it already exist in it’s complete form? Probably not.

> mobile responsive

That’s just down to media queries in CSS. An increasing number of the StudioPress themes are already mobile responsive, and many of the others can be made so relatively easily (either by yourself if you’ve got some basic coding ability, or my a developer you hire).

> adsense ready

Not sure what you mean by Adsense ready, but having a column be at least a certain width is trivial, and a quick search (https://www.google.com/search?q=Genesis+adsense) will show several tutorials about how you’d go about inserting your Adsense code into a Genesis child theme.

> has at least a slightly out-of-the-box design,

Design is subjective. “out-of-the-box” is going to mean something completely different to you as it is to me, but if you don’t like any of the existing themes, then you can customise it – see the showcase (http://www.studiopress.com/showcase) for lots of examples that go beyond the mundane.

> allows for virtually unlimited customizations in the way of layout, fonts, and *especially* colors.

Genesis comes with 6 layouts by defaults, and there are plugins that allow more by default. You can of course use CSS to choose whatever layout you want.
Fonts – again, that’s a CSS thing as it’s part of design. You might like to look at Prose child theme, or Genesis Extender plugin / Dynamik theme for something with a user interface for changing options.
Colors are also design – several existing child themes already come with style selectors in to change the overall style colours, and a recent plugin also allows child theme colours to be changed via the Theme Customizer. Beyond that, it’s back to CSS again if you can’t find anything that fits.

If something doesn’t exist already, then you have to be prepared to build it – either by assembling or coding it yourself, or hiring someone to do it for you.

GaryJ — thank you for all the info. I was getting so frustrated looking at theme after theme that boasted “five color options” (or similar). For an aesthetically oriented person like myself, that’s like asking me to subsist on a diet of nothing other than five varieties of apples.

Anyway, it looks like I have a lot to learn, but you gave me some great starting points. Thanks again!